why do we prefer ? to ?? operator in c#?

Question

I recently found that we can use ?? operator to check nulls. Please check the below code samples:

   var res = data ?? new data();

This is

Answer 1

Based on Bob's answer

public object nullCoalesce(object a, object b, object c)
{
    return a ?? b ?? c;
}
public object ternary(object a, object b, object c)
{
    return a != null ? a : b != null ? b : c;
}
public object ifThenElse(object a, object b, object c)
{
    if (a != null)
        return a;
    else if (b != null)
        return b;
    else
        return c;
}

... this is the IL from release builds ...

.method public hidebysig instance object nullCoalesce(
    object a, 
    object b, 
    object c) cil managed
{
    .maxstack 8
    L_0000: ldarg.1 
    L_0001: dup 
    L_0002: brtrue.s L_000b
    L_0004: pop 
    L_0005: ldarg.2 
    L_0006: dup 
    L_0007: brtrue.s L_000b
    L_0009: pop 
    L_000a: ldarg.3 
    L_000b: ret 
}

.method public hidebysig instance object ternary(
    object a, 
    object b, 
    object c) cil managed
{
    .maxstack 8
    L_0000: ldarg.1 
    L_0001: brtrue.s L_000a
    L_0003: ldarg.2 
    L_0004: brtrue.s L_0008
    L_0006: ldarg.3 
    L_0007: ret 
    L_0008: ldarg.2 
    L_0009: ret 
    L_000a: ldarg.1 
    L_000b: ret 
}

.method public hidebysig instance object ifThenElse(
    object a, 
    object b, 
    object c) cil managed
{
    .maxstack 8
    L_0000: ldarg.1 
    L_0001: brfalse.s L_0005
    L_0003: ldarg.1 
    L_0004: ret 
    L_0005: ldarg.2 
    L_0006: brfalse.s L_000a
    L_0008: ldarg.2 
    L_0009: ret 
    L_000a: ldarg.3 
    L_000b: ret 
}